


from one life to the next.

by trickstered



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-03 01:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19453312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trickstered/pseuds/trickstered
Summary: The last thoughts of Rick Macy.





	from one life to the next.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a million years ago for tumblr, and now I give it to u.

He’s twelve when he meets Kieren. Theirs is not a nursery friendship, born in the early days of their lives and forged through a lifetime of secrets shared. He’s twelve, primary school a year behind him and Kieren is five seats in front of him during their induction to secondary school. Rick remembers this with vivid accuracy; Kieren had had floppy ginger hair smeared across the front of his face. He wore these terrible wrist bands and his bag was almost too large for his skinny frame to carry. Rick had not fallen in love immediately; what he’d done, once he’d glanced at Kieren Walker, was laugh.

He’s not laughing now. The mirror tells no lies, though he wishes desperately that it would. He’s barely stitched back together, the staples discolouring from the cover-up mousse. When he’d first come to in the dry heat of the desert Halperin and Weston facility, he hadn’t even been certain it was wholly his face they’d stitched back onto him. He’d been surprised that he had a face at all, given that he'd been half blown up. 

His mother always called him handsome and she still did. Janet never had a cruel bone in her body, even now. Bill must have had kindness in him once, Rick thinks. There must have been something long ago that Janet saw and fell for. Rick remembers glimpses of it from his childhood; kicking around a football, being lifted above Bill's head every time he scored a goal. It used to be easy to superimpose the good over the bad, except the times when the bad happened in real time. 

-

Before secondary school, Rick was football mad. He was obsessed with cringe rap, thought girls were dead embarrassing and used to watch South Park whenever he thought his folks were asleep. 

He’s twelve when he meets Kieren, and most of that stays the same. 

Kieren sits beside him in English, a big frown on his face. He gives Rick a terribly sullen look and all at once he has something to prove. Rick’s been team captain of his under eighteen’s football team for nearly three years. He’s the best cross country runner in Roarton’s upper valley and Kieren Walker looks like he can barely stand the sight of him. They don’t talk for three weeks, until one day they’re settling down for the introduction to The Crucible. Rick can’t resist asking under his breath: “what’s with the woolly bracelets?“

Kieren looks terribly offended, big brown eyes wide with indignation when he turns sharply. Rick makes the mistake of glancing at them, mid laugh and blimey, he thinks, who’s ever had eyes like that?

“They’re not bracelets,” hisses Kieren. “They’re sweatbands. They’re fashionable. ”

They talk, after that. Rick remembers every detail after it. He’s fourteen when he realises his friendship with Kieren isn’t like his friendship with Gary or Freddie. He forgives Kieren his oddities; the Adam and The Aunt jackets, the one month of eyeliner. He never defends him against Gary's teasing, or apologises for the unfunny quips of his own.  
-  
Looking in the mirror, he wishes he had. 

Rick's always told himself he's brave. Turns out he's never been very brave at all. 

-

Kieren makes these CDs up, full of carefully picked songs. Jem has a whole stack of them in her room, he knows. All of them heavy metal and all of them made with the intent to help her overcome her shyness. He knows the kids younger than him talk about her, sometimes. She's as quiet as a mouse, easily forgettable after a glance. If she didn't have Kieren for a brother, she probably would disappear into the walls like she's always wanted. 

He loves Jem Walker like a sister and he sticks up for her the way he can't bring himself to do for Kieren. Kieren’s a tough lad, though. Even when he isn’t.

Rick’s first mix CD gets Kieren kicked out of his house. It’s titled ‘I think I knew you in a past life’ and Rick keeps it, even when Bill demands it gets tossed.

He’s almost fifteen, then. It's maybe then that he knows.

-

Maybe he did know Kieren in a past life; maybe he’s stuck in an endless loop of loving him and never ever being brave enough to admit it.

Rick’s eighteen when he dies; it’s almost Kieren’s birthday and he’s thousands of miles away. It’s not a clean death; he bleeds out for hours in the sand. Everything hurts so much that it barely hurts at all. His face is stapled together but Rick can barely remember it being blown apart. He signed up to be brave; to make Bill Macy proud. He wonders, now, if he’s ever done a single thing that his father’s ever been proud of.

He covers half his face and for a second, he’s eighteen again. He hasn’t gone away; Kieren’s birthday is mere days away and his dads downstairs, ready to take him to the recruitment office. When he lifts his hand away, he’s twenty-something and he’s been robbed.

Rick makes his mind up.

(It’s five years too late; he should have known. His life flashes before his eyes in the bathroom, a bittersweet mosaic of Kieren Walker and his mother. He should have known. )


End file.
